In Wonderland
by shedseventears
Summary: They're all mad here. And in the confines of the murder house, it's all to easy to retread previous victims' fatal flaws. Particularly in the case of one Violet Harmon. Post 1x06.
1. Chapter 1

**In Wonderland**

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><p><strong>READ: Author's Note<strong>

**Hey guys-firstly, thanks for reading. Secondly, I was one of the many disappointed by the finale, and in the general direction that the story took around the point of the Rubber Man reveal. It's not that I wanted my ship to end happily ever after, because... they're Tate and Violet. Please. **

**It's that I thought that the show could have gone in an entirely different direction. The finale confirmed this for me. So-I decided to start writing an alternate direction for AHS, post Piggy Piggy. Some things are going to stay the same. Others will be radically different. The one thing I can confirm is that Tate will not be the Rubber Man. Oh, wait-I can also confirm that he's still a completely twisted, messed up kid who is not under any circumstances going to be a nice person. So. There's that. **

**Enjoy!**

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><p>The thing is, he doesn't remember. And if he doesn't remember—doesn't even know he's dead, maybe—then… it doesn't count. He's a different person, so different from the blank-eyed boy in ugly school pictures, the one who sat in the library and stood in the library and killed the library.<p>

But that's bullshit.

She's a smart girl; she has an IQ her father likes to brag about, a sense for the macabre that masks a brain for equations. This one's simple, really. X=Y. He may not remember, may not know. Yet he still likes Byron and birds, still preaches the wisdom of Cobain and Tarantino. He still wears sweaters like that and his hair like this, a perfectly preserved time capsule. And though she can't know this, he still smiles in a way that once sent shivers down his mother's spine.

She's a smart girl. He can't change in one way and remain so frozen in others.

Violet Harmon has never been one to indulge in fantasies, preferring harsh reality to the dreamland her parents cooked up. Through all of their fights and make-ups, the framed image of Vivien crying into her husband's shirt, Ben's arms looped around her waist—Violet watched with detached observations, never really there, never a part of it. And she wondered why people would do this, pretend one thing when while the other slaps them across their faces.

So then she met a boy; a boy who spends more time talking about why he likes birds than why he decided to blow somebody's brains out. When he was a little freaky—all offbeat and quirky and oh, where did those scratches come from?—she could dismiss it as her taste for darkness. A phase that she's sure she'll someday grow out of, like everyone does. Because she has time to grow. Time to change. Time he'll never get back.

There was this time—back before the baby and the affair and This House—back when Violet and Vivien were close. They spent the whole night watching this 20/20 special on "prison wives". Those fat bitches who marry serial killers, she thought, reclined against the sofa. And they were fat and gray before their time, a few dragging a couple of snot-nosed brats to the penitentiaries. Vacant-eyed, without a thought in the world of what their husbands had done. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but them and their excuses and mommy issues.

But in the middle of the night, he says her name. She wonders if he wonders—how he got here, why he never seems to leave. But in what's become a pattern, she pulls back the covers and sighs, trading a guilty conscience for a not-warm boy in her bed.

* * *

><p>For the first few days after, she can't return to school.<p>

None of the students are the same, and very few of that old staff remains—with the exception of the one, the one who saw it and felt it all and wears the scars to prove it. He's enough, though. Enough to keep her hiding in her room, waiting with a sick sense of hope and anticipation for her parents to find out.

They never do, and with disappointment comes relief. She doesn't want to look him in the eye, doesn't want to think about the nights when things go further and further with biting teeth and sharp gasps, nails clawing dead skin. (What if I had sex with him? Is that even real sex? Come _on_.)

The worst of it is when the guilt fades into pleasure and it's all she can do to run downstairs—not grab something to eat anymore, for she's hardly hungry—and inform the parents that yes, she is still indeed alive. Then there's the nice surprise of dating the dead—undead? He's always around, always waiting, always willing to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants to.

He has this thing, he mutters against her skin one day. This thing about making them happy.

She doesn't bother asking who "they" are, and she doesn't mind forgetting about how far from happy she happens to be. Violet only presses his lips to her neck and his hand to her breast and reminds him to shut up.

The only time he doesn't listen is when, three days later, she tells him that she needs to go back to school, somewhere between kissing and pretending to converse.

"What?" He blinks, as if he's some high school drop-out versus some high school murderer. Pretty lies he tells himself, she figures. "No. I mean"—and there's a catch to his voice—"are you sure you're feeling okay? You took a lot of pills, Vi. Like…" His eyes shift from side to side, but they always do that. You can't even tell if you're lying, she thinks, rubbing a thumb over his lower lip. "A lot."

"Yeah, well." She shrugs, gruff and short. "I think I made it. And Mom's gonna lose it if she gets a call from school about me going off the grid. Lose it even more," she adds, thinking of Vivien's gaping mouth, the way she clutches her stomach and hums to herself and oh yeah, eats brains.

He rocks back against the bed, springs creaking with weight that he shouldn't have. Are there places like this, off the property? Places where he would be more than thin air, places where she could show them how perfectly trained her psychotic boyfriend is?

Then again—they've yet to have sex, maybe because she's somewhat afraid he'll disappear when they do. (Of course, with that logic he should have at least gone transparent from half the things they've tried.) But looking at him, at his never-aging body and pretty face—"my gift" his mother calls him—she can imagine just staying here. All day. Never wanting anyone else to see him, to ruin it.

Sometimes, when she's really bored, she listens in on those therapy sessions. It's odd, because he has to know that she's there. Yet every now and then, he lets slip to Ben—and maybe he is less of a liar to Daddy dearest than he is to the rest of them—a hint of the boy who could've killed fifteen in one go.

"Come on, Vi," he pleads, somewhere between submissive and possessive. He runs his fingers over her arm, tracing her scars. There's that moment of calculation, the one he lets slip so rarely—the flicker of his eyes, measuring the dilation of her pupils and the quickening of her breath and the million things that tell him he's on the right track. It's almost sociopathic.

"Stay." Tate has many talents, one of them being his ability to stitch seven layers into one word. "With me. Fuck them, Violet, do you really have to—" His kiss is soft and sweet, just as he very wrongly predicts she wants it. But oh, it is a good kiss, more warmth than fire. His tongue skims her lips, teasing—and she's close to giving in the way he wants her to.

The weird thing is—and she's not as horrified by this as she first was, more angry than sad—that it's this part of him that interests her the most. The part that thinks about what he does, the part that designs every little move to manipulate. The part that, even when he doesn't know it, is twirling her about like a puppet ballerina.

Make no mistake; Violet Harmon is not a vacant-eyed prison wife.

"Stop it," she hisses, shoving him aside. Her hand dashes across her forehead, down her face. "Do not—for one second—think that that works with me." Tate leans away, cringing like its habit from a girl half his size. But there too is the excitement, the challenge in the twitch of his lips. Violet's hands wrench his shoulders, her fingernails cutting into his skin. Like an anchor, like she's trying not to cut free but bind tighter. "Don't even try it." Her voice slickens; she guesses, in that moment, at his weakness. "That's not what I want."

"Really?" Gone is apprehension as he pushes forward, his face in hers, excited and pleading and ready. A little sick, lusting more for some basic, childhood need than her. "What do you want, then?" His fingers tangle in her hair, and she drags those nails down his back. "Just tell me. I'll do anything."

She doesn't go to school that day.

* * *

><p>Over the next few days, she learns things about him. Learns that he wants to make her happy, will do anything to gain a smile… But that's not all there is. Sometimes, if she's really lucky, she'll say or do something to catch a bit of the other him. The one that isn't in control of anything, but wants to control her.<p>

She's not sure why she seeks that side out; whether it's to prove that it's there, or see what he might do. There are times when she thinks about what it would be like: teasing that other person for all of eternity.

What's he going to do when she's gone? She doesn't bother with that question, doesn't worry. It's been seventeen years, and all he does is lurk and pretend that he's alive, maybe scare a few people here and there. He'll be fine without her. Anyway, she doesn't want him trapped in this cycle of being so… nice.

It's not good for him.

So on the days when she wants him and can't stand him, the days she spends yelling at him where Mom and Dad can't hear, shoving him up against the basement wall or twisting his arm or even slapping him once, she reminds herself that she's just toughening him up. Making him what he used to be, but better. It has nothing to do with the fact that a part of her hopes he might react.

Violet doesn't know where these feelings came from, stormy and tense. Within days, a week, she's gone from depressed and weepy to spiteful. There's a sort of high that comes from a change that fast, and sometimes she lies in bed and smiles. Because they won't get the better of her, those parents.

She doesn't bother trying to get their attention. They're all wrapped up in that baby—those babies—and their problems. Dad gravitating between being Dr. Ben Harmon, husband of Vivien, father of Violet—and Ben, that guy with the mistress. Not a teenaged mistress, though Violet manages to make a few quick remarks suggesting so. But that bitch was what? Four, five years older than her?

She sees her. Lingering. Watching Vivien from dark corners, mouth open and glossed and strangely vampiric. Like she wants to suck the life out of Mom, the _lives_.

For a heartbeat, Violet's mouth snaps open, drawing a breath to scream for Vivien. Whether to protect or be protected, she is not sure.

The bitch—I don't even know her name, she realizes—raises a finger to her lips, and somehow that undoes this young, young girl. She does not scream, does not act. She notices, so briefly that it passes her by like a speck of dust, that Vivien never reacts. To her. To the raccoon-eyed creature. To anything they do or say.

But because Violet is nearly as practiced at denial as her dead boy, she dismisses it and moves on to the next room.

* * *

><p>Later, that night—and it doesn't seem like a matter of pressing importance, nothing does anymore—she finds her in the basement. Just as whorish as she imagined, with her scarlet-painted mouth and bound hair. Maybe, if she didn't already hate her, she would kind of like that this girl's living up to expectations, going all Glenn Close on a man who kind of deserves it.<p>

But Vivien—for all her neglect and obsessing and little things that make Violet want to scream—doesn't.

"You have ten seconds to get the fuck out of my house before I call the cops." She reaches for her pocket, for the waiting cell phone.

Up close, she isn't so pretty, purple pooling underneath her eyes like bruises. She twirls a strand of hair around her finger, pops her lips like she's smacking gum. "I don't think I can, sweetheart. Maybe you can tell that slutty old maid to make up a bed for me? I think she'd listen better to you." Batting her eyes, she adds with honeyed innocence, "You're a lady of this hell hole now, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Violet states baldly. "I don't really give a shit. Just—get out."

There it is again—that creeping, foggy confusion, the same thing that overwhelmed her in those first few days after… the attempt. This feeling that she doesn't know everything she thinks she does. And the bitch smiles, stretches luxuriously against the wall.

A sliver of moonlight, streaming in from the window, catches her arms. Violet bites her lip until it might bleed, until its red like those dark marks patterned over that girl's limbs.

And in a move too perfect to be accidental, the bitch wipes at a bloody nose.

"She won't listen to me," she continues, as if Violet hasn't spoken. "The redhead. Do you think that hair's a dye job? It can't be natural. Anyway." She sniffs, pawing at her nose again. "Shit, this thing just gets me sometimes. Sorry. So, like I was saying, she won't listen to me. She'll listen to you—a teenager—but she won't listen to me. Want to know why?"

Regaining her footing, Violet smirks. "Because you're what, twelve? I didn't know my dad had a thing for little girls. But I wouldn't put anything past him—"

"I am not a little girl!" Suddenly she's screaming, those eyes widening and those teeth coated with blood. Violet can't help but cast a glance upstairs, hoping that her mother doesn't wake. Another dead baby is the last thing they need. "I am a _woman_." Fists trembling, she forces herself back against the wall, crossing one leg in front of the other. Her lips press together before she bursts out laughing. "I mean, I was old enough for him to get me pregnant, right? That has to count for something."

Pregnant. She's pregnant. Oh, God.

"You're lying," she says automatically. She's still herself enough to know otherwise. Violet's listened to, believed in too many lives in too short a time to not recognize the truth.

Really, it's not so difficult to believe. Dad, knocking some student up in a twist of irony. Violet scratches at her pocket again, this time searching for missing cigarettes. That's one thing she's always had in common with her father—a tendency to snatch for a distraction at the first cut.

The only difference is that she turns to smoking and he turns to edgy, vulnerable, crazy girls. Of course, she thinks, hearing Tate rustling about her room. Even that difference has faded into nothing.

"You think you're gonna be my new mommy?" Violet's mouth twists, a shadow of the smile Tate Langdon once earned over Kurt Cobain and Morrissey. "Fuck my dad. Have his kid. None of it really matters, right?" She takes a step closer, more careless now than confident. "He mentioned you once." Maybe she's a better liar than this pretty little psycho; she's ready to find out. "Said that you were, like, a classic head case. Completely delusional. That's probably why he liked it. 'Cause he's kind of sick, you know?"

This girl, rather than shrinking or breaking or doing any of what Violet expects—she laughs. Giggles, actually, presses a hand over her mouth to contain that violent, bubbly hysteria. Blood seeps between her fingers, dark and clotted. Violet Harmon is not afraid of blood; the gore is not why her stomach turns.

"You've got it." There's a gurgle to her throat as she chokes on her insides, coughs delicately. "You know. There'll be a couple of babies running around here, but neither of them will be mine. And you know _why_."

Violet clutches that phone for dear life, as if calling the cops will make any difference.

"How is it?" She coaxes, licking her lips. "I mean, I've never really been into younger guys—as you can tell—but he's…" Worse than either of us, is their silent agreement. "Different. If, you know, having a body count is different. Or maybe it's the hair?" Trying her luck, she snakes out a hand, and Violet almost allows contact before lurching backward at the last minute. "Look at you. Judging me. We all know what you're doing in there—with him. To him."

"So you're moving on from my dad?" She's scrambling, grasping for straws. "Stalking me now? I don't know about Dad, but I'm not a big fan of people watching."

The monster-bitch runs a hand through her hair, leaving a slick, metallic-scented streak in her ponytail. "My name's Hayden McClaine. You'll probably need to know that when the cops show up." Glancing down at Violet's still-clutched phone, she adds, "Not for this. But you already know that, too."

Don't ask questions you already know the answers to.

"Don't get too angry." There's more than a touch of sincerity to her words. "He isn't going away; I'll make sure of that. And I don't want anyone hurting him—anyone but me. You understand." Violet may as well be a statue, silent and listening, but never really absorbing what this thing has to say.

What Violet Harmon felt when she discovered her boy's dirty, dirty deeds is called a breakdown. More than that, even—a collapse. Eventually, had she let herself, she would have healed. She would not have been the same person, but she would have healed. She wasn't _broken_.

Tate Langdon and his kisses and the things he wants from her, the things she wants from him… These things have stressed her mind, sent little cracks through the woodwork. And now, looking at something part Ben's fault, part the house and part her own little future, Violet Harmon breaks.

It's just a chip off her young sanity. No big deal, really. Except bruises heal and cracks mend; once something breaks in the murder house, it's never back together again.

"I mean," Hayden grins, all beauty of what could have been. "You can't really judge him for what he did to me. Not when you're screwing Pumped up Kicks over sixth period."

Violet snaps, all reflex and little thought. There goes Tate's most recent lesson, used without a thought because she doesn't really believe, doesn't want to believe. "Go away!"

It isn't a scream, an order. She bleeds desperation like Hayden bleeds hunger.

Two words are enough to make the boogeyman disappear; but not forever. And nothing will be enough to kill the thoughts flying through Violet's head, the confirmation that her father's a horrible person, the implication that he's much more.

Hayden does have a point, of course. Why get mad at Daddy when Tate hasn't even washed the blood off his hands?

Because she can; because she's too tired to care. And despite her exhaustion, Violet Harmon walks up the stairs; slips into bed; and wakes Tate for another round of disguised lying.


	2. Chapter 2

2

There are times—times when she can't stand to look at Tate, when she can't bear to listen to another one of her parents' knock-down drag-outs—that Violet spends in the attic. With Beau.

At the end of the day, Beau's pretty harmless. She hears him breathing, heavy and labored, almost painful. And she wants to tell him that it doesn't matter, that he needn't breathe anymore, that it's habit. But Beau wouldn't understand that anymore than Tate does. The only difference is that Tate doesn't have the excuses that Beau does.

It's a beautiful house, she thinks, leaning her head against the boarded wall. Not a bad place to die in, all things considered. Not a bad place to spend forever in.

When Violet's in one of her moods, she wonders over the welts scattered across Hayden's body. Sure, Dad probably killed her. And he likely did it because of that baby. But how? Did he beat her with his fists, or something more? Did she scream? Was it during school hours, or after sunset?

Ben and Vivien assume that she's at school; so they don't bother with lowering their voices.

"Was it worth it, Ben?"

A smashed glass.

"Viv—Vivien." There he is; calm, cool and collected. She should have called the murderer thing years ago. "I know that you're under a lot of stress. But if you just take a step back and look at things rationally—"

Oh. Slumping down, Violet presses her ear against a floorboard. She should tell her mother. She should spill everything, admit everything.

But what does she have to back it up? Mom, you don't have to worry about Hayden anymore. Dad kind of killed her.

Later that day, she's splayed over Tate. Her leg hooked between his, his thumb tracing her pulse. Violet imagines that this heartbeat isn't fabricated, and whispers, "Have you seen that chick who likes to stalk my parents? The one with the marks on her arms?"

"Yeah. Yeah," he says after a moment, somewhat hesitantly. Tate's quick to recover his composure, smirking as he adds, "She's kind of hot."

"Whatever. She's one of them, right?" After he confirms what she already knows, Violet smiles. Sitting up in bed, she lets her hair fall long and loose, the way he likes it—just barely covering her breasts. Her fingertips skim Tate's chest, and the light of suspicion creeps into his eyes. There he is, analyzing her every move. It's as if he's waiting for something, though Violet can't know what.

"Why?" Trying not to look at her, he adds, "You know who she is. Just don't mess with her, Vi. Another crazy bitch in the house isn't going to make a difference."

He's probably grown used to them over the years. Because there are a lot of them, though Violet tries not to notice. The nurses, who are more weepy than harmful. That blond woman, the original lady of the house—always crying and wringing her hands over babies. Nora Montgomery, Tate once said. Violet shivers when she thinks about how much of that story was probably true.

She wouldn't care—and so much of her doesn't want to. Another dead chick; what's the big deal? Why should she get involved?

But whatever piece of Violet that remains human—and moral—whispers, Your father killed her. And you know she wants to hurt your mother.

Caring for her parents, taking care of them, has become tedious. In an odd way, Violet's almost relieved to imagine that she doesn't have to love Ben anymore. But then she'll look at Tate, want his mouth on hers, and feel another wave of nauseous self-loathing. Why turn in Ben when she has a mass murderer in her bed?

She hates it when the dead broads are right.

"She screwed my dad," she says baldly. "Got pregnant with his baby, if what my mom's been screaming is true."

But Vivien hasn't said a word about the baby, not directly. Not to Violet. She never tells Violet anything.

"I'd kind of like to know how she ended up dead."

He lifts a shoulder, bites his lower lip. He's hiding something, but what else is new? She's too busy to take on another Tate problem. "You're asking me?"

She waits a beat too long to answer. "You know everything about this place."

There it is—that clouded confusion, hesitation before he writes himself an explanation. It must be hard—being Tate Langdon. Taking a leaf from her boyfriend's book, Violet wraps her arms around his neck, kisses him until she might scream. They're at a constant struggle for the upper hand, him flipping her onto the bed. And now Tate's the one kissing Violet, Tate's the one on top, Tate's the one in control.

Violet never dated. It wasn't for a lack of trust or interest; it just never happened. But she'd like to imagine that she would be a fairly normal girlfriend. Not the kind who held her boyfriend's affections hostage, who wanted to kiss him when he looked like he wanted to kill her.

She likes to think that Tate feels the same.

* * *

><p>"She's under the gazebo."<p>

"What?"

Vivien's at another doctor's appointment, at her insistence. Ben stands grudgingly by her side. And though there's no one to hide from—no one living, at least—Tate and Violet stand at her window, looking down at her back yard.

"The psycho bitch," he says simply. "She's under the gazebo."

Of course, Violet already knew that Hayden was dead. But knowing where she is—rotting under the gazebo, the gazebo her father built, the gazebo Vivien sits her lemonade upon—seals it. This is real. She needs to tell her mother. She needs to get the hell out of this house.

When her parents sat her down to explain the move, they used a lots of phrases like "fresh start" and "new adventure". The typical shit. What Violet Harmon heard was a death sentence, the ticking of a time bomb—and the Harmons' last appeal. Only, the life of their marriage—a screaming, dysfunctional life—wasn't even worth it. Isn't worth it.

Even after the latest incident—the one she was blissfully absent for, the one she spent discussing her dead boy with his mother—Vivien still gives her husband long, mournful glances. And whenever Violet notices, she wants to vomit. Is it ever going to end?

Does Mom even deserve the knowledge?

"What do you think I should do?" She no longer cares that she's asking question of a murderer seventeen years in his grave. She no longer cares that she knows the answer before it tumbles from Tate's mouth, crisp and decided.

"Do you love him? Your father?" He looks at her from underneath his long, fine eyelashes. "If you love someone, you should never hurt them."

Sometimes he's like this—a broken record, repeating himself over and over until she whips him into reality.

"Because if you do," Tate continues, messing absently with Violet's hair again. "You shouldn't say anything." She sighs; it's so black and white for him. Please the ones you love; everyone else is fair game. "If you don't…" There's an edge of anticipation to his voice, borderline hopeful as he takes her hand. "It's up to you."

I'll help you, is the unspoken message. He doesn't need to say it—Tate Langdon has been slavering for violence since her family moved in. It isn't natural, Violet thinks as she traces a fingertip along his jaw. It isn't natural for someone like him to be anything other than what he is—

Blinking, she snaps to reality, so much harsher than this world of ghosts and mass murderers. "Tate…" Her head rests against his shoulder, and they're twins in their brokenness, looking out at that gazebo. "It's not…" For the first time since she discovered the truth, Violet Harmon is truly honest with Tate Langdon. "It's not that I'm not pissed at him. It's just that—that's all I am. Not scared, or sad, or you know. What I should be. I'm just pissed. At him. At—"

Is it so terrible that a little part of Violet thinks her mother deserves it? For wanting to go back to him? For wanting—

"That's the way mothers are, Vi. They don't want you when you're here."

But he's right, isn't he? Vivien wants that dead baby, buried so long ago. Constance wants her dead children, in the fresh and old graves. Violet isn't so sure that she wants to punish her mother. But she does know that she doesn't want to tell her—not yet.

* * *

><p>There's something dark and low creeping through this house.<p>

It whispers to them—to the man and his desires, to the woman with her children.

Once, the thing in this house whispered to a pretty, golden boy. A child of the house, really. And that is what this thing wants—to recreate the perfection it once had in a lovely child, the first child, the one that was at once ruined and turned into something better.

Not so long ago, it nearly succeeded. But this one—this near-flawless work—had the fatal flaws of a shattered, trembling mind, and a mother. The thing within the house plans to do better this time around.

* * *

><p>You would think that she'd be more suicidal than ever now.<p>

Violet still sees Hayden, slipping in and out of the shadows. She's not sure why the ghost chooses to reveal herself to Violet but never Vivien; she doesn't want to know.

She wouldn't call herself apathetic, exactly. Just neither here nor there. It's not that she hates her mother; but the love isn't what it used to be, either. There's this lovely lull of concern, you could say, a small stretch in which she's fairly certain her father isn't a danger to society at large—but if he is, she might just let him go.

Vivien wasn't looking when she ate dinner with fresh-cut wrists. Vivien wasn't looking when she downed those pills.

Tate still tip-toes around her, as if waiting for the breaking point. It's kind of funny, in a sick way. As if she's the ticking time bomb, the one to be afraid of. Violet misses the sharp, sardonic boy who told her how to kill herself, and sometimes she can't help but egg him into silly fights. She whispers in his ear, reminds him to skip therapy. She says that it's because of what her father's done, but she knows the truth; Ben's crimes make no difference to Tate. The problem is that Violet doesn't want him sane.

"You know what this room was supposed to be?"

Looking up from her book, she swallows a groan. By now Violet knows that the fluffers her parents talk about were the ghosts of gay guys past, though why they've never picked up on that, she's not sure. Ben and Vivien have no taste for the supernatural.

Tate plays coy on Chad and Patrick's deaths, as if she won't find out eventually. He doesn't seem to spend much time with the other ghosts—he'll play with Beau, but never mentions much else. Certainly nothing of these two.

She's seen them around from time to time, and description tells her that this one is Chad, the Vivien to his boyfriend's Ben. Cheating is like a virus in this house. Kind of like death.

"This room," he says, waving a hand. "Was supposed to the baby's room; not a nursery, mind you, but a real room. I had two different color schemes picked out—one if it was a boy, one if it was a girl. Pat and I really kind of wanted a boy, though." He smiles faintly. "You know we would have raised him to have better fashion sense than the low-lives his age. Or, I would. Pat varies in that department."

For a moment, he's borderline melancholy, wallowing in his sorrows. It doesn't last long. "I had big plans for this room. If I'd known that it would end up at the mercy of some teenage waste of space…" He toys with her curtains. "Stuck in the 90s…" A smile quirks his lips. "Well."

She could—should—tell him to go away, as Tate taught her to. But in these rare moments she spends without Tate or her parents—not alone, for they really are never alone here, are they?—she gets bored. Curious. Truth be told, Violet is nothing without conflict. Peace, she suspects, is terribly boring.

"What do you want?" Her lips curl, almost playfully. "Sorry, I don't think my skirts come in your size."

"Please," Chad mutters, shuddering. "As if I would be caught dead in one of those nightmares." Allowing for a moment of silence, he arches one eyebrow. "I heard that you'd caught on. It's been a while since that happened. From what I hear, anyway." His eyes flit over her, almost studiously. "Pat and I are the newbies in this place. Were, that is."

Interest piqued, Violet leans forward. It's kind of funny—sitting on the foot of her bed. Talking to a ghost. She's been keeping tabs on them; Chad and Patrick died in 2010—Tate in 1994. The nurses, the bleeding ones who keep following her around… They're the ones those freaks tried to remake, dating back to the 60s.

Who needs a history textbook when you have the house?

"Were?"

Chad's lips twitch, confusion flitting across his face for a bare second. It doesn't really suit him. He isn't vague, like those nurses, or confused like the woman her mother fears. The original woman of this house. "I mean—before the little bitch arrived."

"Arrived?" Violet smoothes her hair, rolls her shoulders. "You act like she just moved in."

"Believe me," Chad says, leaning against the wall. He fiddles with a Burtonesque figurine on Violet's dresser, lip curling. "Once you cross that bridge yourself, things become run of the mill. You can only"—he taps his finger for emphasis—"watch that doctor dismember so many ghosts—you know, the kind who keeps putting themselves back together again—before you become… How do I put this? An old hat."

Nodding, Violet dangles her feet over the side of the bed, stretches out on her back. "Is Hayden as much of a bitch as she seems to be?"

Chad snorts. "Don't ask me—I try not to hang around her type. You know. Little girl lost, and all that. But hey, who am I to judge? You can't understand what it's like to be beaten over the head by a shovel until it happens to you, right?"

"But you do know what it's like to be murdered. Or die tragically, whatever."

"Actually, no."

Rubbing his fingers together—perhaps wrinkling his nose at the thin layer of dust that coats her room—Chad says, "I wasn't murdered. I _murdered_. And then I put a bullet through my skull, but who's counting?" He lifts a shoulder. "I don't know how I figured out how to keep my face nice and pretty. Probably the same way your boyfriend keeps himself shiny and new. Wouldn't want him looking like Swiss cheese, would we?"

He rattles off this list of facts like nothing; and it nearly is. Violet's all shocked-out; what can surprise her now? She hadn't expected Chad to be the killer of the two. Patrick is so much bigger; but then, he wanders around, radiating selfish crudeness, a groping sense that reaches out for everyone and anyone. He isn't gay or straight or bi—he's anything that moves. But he isn't… wrathful. Angry, yes. Resentful, absolutely.

But Violet—Violet, who has recently gotten a sense for feelings—only tastes wrath from Chad.

"I still don't really remember doing it," he comments hollowly, neither content or distressed. His dark eyes stare into her patterned bedspread, as it's an anchor. "It comes and goes in flashes. For a little while, I didn't even know that I was dead. Pat did, though. Pat knew from the beginning. And he let me know what he thought about that." Flicking a strand of hair out of his face, Chad anchors his gaze on Violet's. "I've noticed that suicides are a little out of touch with reality."

Tate. Tate isn't a suicide; he didn't shoot himself, slash his wrists, overdose on drugs. But out of all the scandal-seeking articles Violet has read, one detail was kept constant: the shooter pulled a gun on the cops.

He would have known—anyone would have known—what would happen then.

"Why'd you do it?" She asks quietly. The question has been hanging on the tip of her tongue since she found out about Tate. It's not as satisfactory, asking it of Chad. But it will do for now.

"He was going to leave me," Chad states simply, as if she should know this already. "For another man, too. He'd gone and fallen in love when he told me they were just blow jobs and easy lays. We were going to have a baby. Can you believe that?" Tapping a finger against his chin, he absently adds, "Of course, that's what he told me. I still don't really remember…"

Babies. Why does everyone here die over babies? It's getting ridiculous.

"I can't imagine why your little boy toy doesn't remember." Chad rolls his eyes dramatically. "I mean, _I_ remember hearing about on the news. But then…" With a sly smile, he says, "He wasn't really one for conversation before you showed up, my dear." Plopping down beside her, he leans in, the perfect mockery of a Hollywood gay man. "So, like, is it the sex just _ah_-mazing when it's with a psycho killer?"

"I don't know—ask your boyfriend."

"Should've seen that coming. But"—he brushes a finger against Violet's cheek, not noticing her flinch—"I've always thought that crimes of passion were much more understandable than… I don't know… Loading up and shooting—"

"I know the facts," she snaps, closing her eyes. There it is again—that dull throbbing in her temple, the back of her throat.

Chad rubs her shoulder, and this is one of the most surreal moments of her life. For some reason, Violet hasn't given much thought to having sex with a ghost. But talking to a ghost—like this, like they're friends—that's weird. You could say that her priorities are off.

"Actually," he begins, voice barely more than a whisper. "You don't."

Her throat is so sore, her mouth dry and gluey. "I know what my dad did to Hayden, if that's what you're getting at."

Violet is staring straight ahead, refusing to look at Chad; so she doesn't see the look of exasperated annoyance that crosses Chad's features. Yet he snatches at what she said. "You mean… That he banged her, got her pregnant? Everyone knows that. It's all she ever talks about—having a baby with your dad, marrying your dad, living happily ever after with… your dad." He pauses. "He's pretty and all, but I feel violated whenever he eats a banana."

Sucking in a breath, Violet balls her hands into fists. "He killed her. You. Asshole."

Chad shifts his head from side to side. "Well, that's a bit dramatic, don't you think? Indirectly, I suppose he did. He did knock her up and everything, and turn her all kinds of crazy. But burying the body—even building a gazebo—isn't technically murder. He didn't want her to die. Accomplice is probably a better word—speaking from a murderer's personal perspective—"

"What?" Fighting back the distractions—waves of nausea rolling throughout her body—she coughs. "What do you mean, he didn't technically—he built a fucking gazebo over her, he _killed_ her—"

"Is that what Hayden told you?" Chad asks pleasantly. "Nah. Everyone knows it was that creepy burned guy who stalks your father—"

"What? A burned guy? I don't underst—" Clapping her hands over her ears, Violet hunches over. She doesn't understand anything. Nothing makes sense. Vaguely, she hears Chad say something about her being out of the loop, and she just—

Last night, Violet Harmon and Tate Langdon lay in her bed, talking like normal teenagers: in sweet mumbles, their limbs entwined. They fed off of one another's warmth, trading kisses every now and then. The nicest they'd been since her discovery, and Tate almost sounded like his old self, the sarcastic, sharp boy he was before Halloween night.

And for a split second, she was happy enough to shed a tear.

"Hey," he said, curling her close. "Hey, hey. It's gonna be okay, Vi."

"No, it's not." She sniffed feels more sorry for herself and her mother—or what they all were a long, long time ago—then any girl her father might have murdered. "He's just walking around… Like it's nothing…"

"That's the way people are." Tate's voice turned hard, flat. "They do bad things, and they walk around, and nobody every does anything about it. Until they do."

And for a split second, Violet thought he's right. Someone has to do something. She pressed her lips to his, more of a butterfly kiss than anything else. Her finger stroked along his jawline. "It'd be kind of nice if he wasn't around anymore, wouldn't it?"

Oh God.


End file.
